Scott Bennett (left) presents the accolade to Standard Life's Steven Edwards (centre) and Garry Pullar (right)
As part of our series looking at what firms did to win their accolades at the WSB Awards 2024, WSB speaks talks to Standard Life head of workplace digital Andy Snell about winning the Workplace Savings and Benefits Initiative of the Year accolade
What does it mean to win this award?
Winning this award means a lot to us at Standard Life. It is confirmation of our dedication to making our client analytics platform best in class for the support it provides employers in helping them to drive better retirement outcomes for their members. We're passionate about people's financial wellbeing and employers are in a great position to support this through their workplace pension offering. Having a plan for retirement – such as saving into a pension – is a key part of feeling financially well so we're proud of the role our platform plays in making a real difference to peoples' lives.
What do you believe sets you apart from your peers?
At Standard Life, we built our client analytics platform to be more than just a data resource as we want to give employers actionable insights into how their employees are engaging with their pension. We listened to clients and members to understand the key barriers that prevent members from engaging with their pensions, and what data and tools could help overcome them. This insight-based approach has helped us create something that genuinely helps employers understand where they need to focus their attention and the impact their actions can have.
What are the key challenges facing your clients and how are you helping them address them?
It can be difficult for employers to know how many of their employees are on track for the retirement they want. That's where access to meaningful data from their pension provider can make a world of difference – both to their employees and their reward strategy.
Utilising data removes the guesswork and can help them gain insights into how employees are interacting with their pension scheme, allowing them to spot poor engagement levels, low retirement savings, or even missing beneficiary details. Using this data allows them to create a benefits strategy based on what employees really need, and what could help them achieve their retirement goals.
How will you continue to improve your services to clients over the coming 12 months?
We have an exciting programme of improvements to the platform that will significantly increase the support the platform provides to employers and make it even easier to identify where action is required and what they can do about it. We've already redesigned our dashboard to make key information and insights more accessible and we've other planned enhancements that will become live over the next 12 months.
The winners of the 12th anniversary Workplace Savings and Benefits Awards were announced at an event held at London's Marriott Grosvenor Square on 5 September. To see the full list of winners and find out more about the awards, visit: wsbawards.co.uk
